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Lighting Review: A. C. Entertainment Technologies, Ltd.
Chroma-Q Color Split and Color Punch
The A.C. Entertainment Technologies, Ltd. name has been synonymous with quality color changing products for many years, starting first with the Chroma-Q gel-based color changing units and later adding to the Chroma-Q line with the successful Color Block and Color Web LED products. Today A.C. lighting continues to expand the Chroma-Q line of products with the Color Split and Color Punch LED lighting fixtures.
The Color Split is an LED wash fixture designed specifically to provide a smooth light output when washing a wall, lighting a truss, a cyc, or a scenic piece. It accomplishes this by using two sets of LEDs, with one set stacked over the other, as well as different lenses for each set of LEDs—one set of LEDs has a wide lens while the other set of LEDs has a narrow lens.
The LEDs with the wide lenses are set closer to the piece that you’re lighting, while the narrow-lensed LEDs are further away from the object you’re lighting. This lensing system creates an almost even field of light by spreading the light in a wider pattern close to the fixture, while keeping the pattern narrow as you move away from the fixture. The end result is a light output similar to a cyc box or a Fresnel. It is a very even wash of light without the big hotspot at the bottom or the cone of light going up the wall or set piece that you get with a PAR can or other can-type LED fixtures. Also, the Color Split has optional lenses that allow you to outfit the unit with different beam spreads to meet your lighting needs.
Color Split Operation and Performance
This even field of light produced by the Color Split is my favorite feature of this fixture. You can easily light a 4-foot-wide by 12-foot-tall scenic piece with one Color Split and expect the light to be fairly even across the whole piece. This is pretty impressive considering that a Color Split is approximately 10 inches wide, five inches tall, and five inches deep. You get a lot of light and cover a lot of area with a very compact fixture.
Of course, the amount of light and the area that the Color Split covers have a lot to do with its LED light source. Each set of LEDs is comprised of four cells, with each cell having a red, green, blue, and amber LED. This gives you a total of 16 LEDs per set for a total of 32 LEDs per fixture. All of the LEDs are high output with a total rated output of 620 Lumens in white.
Control of the fixture can be accomplished in several different ways depending on how you want to use it. First, each set of 16 LEDs can be controlled individually, or both sets of 16 LEDs can be controlled as one unit.
Controlling both sets of LEDs together as one unit simplifies operation of the fixture, but controlling each set of LEDs independently gives you greater creative control and allows you to create split color effects.
Once you determine if you will control both sets of LEDs together or independently you next decide how you’re going to control the color mixing. The Color Split has four different color-mixing options. The first option is red, green, and blue, mixing with Magic Amber. In this mode you control the amount of red, green, and blue from the console, and the fixture’s Magic Amber function decides how much amber to add in depending on how much red and green you’re using to mix your desired color.
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Greg Persinger is the owner of Vivid Illumination. He can be reached at greg@vividillumination.com.
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